I was pushed to my limit in Melancholia, but I was willing to go there. For the last shot, with me, Kirsten, and the little boy all together, Lars said, “I want to have a bit of an experiment with you. Every morning I’d like to shoot this scene. Again. You can listen to whatever you want, do whatever you need. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but it’s the end of the world and I want to see an expression of something.” It was terrifying, because at a point, it wasn’t acting anymore. The suffering and the cruelty of the moment was horrible.

”Love affairs, adventures – these become less important and your work takes on greater meaning because it gives you the illusion of still being young. So you have a growing sense of security there – and less in life, where I am increasingly insecure. The public says bravo, but those close to you say, ‘You’re past 60 and you still have the brain of a 10-year-old. How is it possible? How else could it be? The Madonna, when I was born, said, ‘That one, he’s to remain forever a baby and become an actor.’

I work overtime with my fantasies and always have. Fellini said that when we got past 60, there’d be less trouble, more peace. Women are beautiful, but they complicate life. At night, you don’t sleep, you talk, you argue, you make love at 5 in the morning, then drag yourself off to the studio – a madhouse! But now, there’s still no peace, it’s even worse.

Sunday morning, at the beach at Ostia, I see these pretty girls in bathing suits and I go crazy. With my fantasies, it’ll never end, even at 100! Women see more clearly – too clearly sometimes, especially for an actor who does everything to make real something which, in reality, does not exist. In the theater, you turn a lie, a fiction, into a truth, an illusion into a reality. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been attracted to actresses. They understand this.”